On June 8, Redlands faces a vote on Measure O that has wider implications than just whether to allow supercenters (“Mega-Retail Development whose total sales floor area exceeds 100,000 square feet”) that sell groceries (“devotes more than 3 percent of its sales floor area to the sale of non-taxable merchandise”). Proponents are “ordinary citizens” worried about preserving the “small town qualities of Redlands,” concerned that supercenters “destroy communities” and represent “corporate takeover of our local economy.”

Opponents argue revenue loss without the supercenters and with shoppers flocking to nearby pro-supercenter towns.

Fundamentally, Measure O is about curtailing our economic freedom.

In a free society, individuals have a right to trade goods with each other. A Redlands plumber trades his earnings with a grocer who in turn has traded his investment/profit with a farmer who in turn traded … and so on. We are an inextricable part of this complex web where individuals produce goods and benefit by trading with each other – as “consumers” or “producers.” Thus, economic freedom entails not only the right of the “consumer” to purchase goods, but also the right of the “producer” to sell the goods. As far as voluntary transactions are concerned there is no difference whether you trade with one person or a corporation (comprising many individuals). Ayn Rand, the well-known author of the prescient “Atlas Shrugged,” identified this as the “trader principle.”

The revenue argument ignores the fundamental violation that Measure O represents – violation of the rights of a Redlands residents to engage in the trader principle with an outlet of their choice as well as the violation of the rights of the producers to sell a product – in this case, solely based on size, the underlying premise being that if a business is big it is ipso facto bad.

One may ask what is so inherently bad about 100,000 square feet? Or 3 percent? Would businesses benefit by limiting their rivals to 50,000 square feet or to 2.5% percent? If big is bad, who defines how big big is? A group of “concerned citizens” backed by businesses who would seek to shackle our economic freedom, growth and prosperity? Or a group of businesses who willingly fetter their own growth (since Measure O also limits the expansion of existing grocery outlets) just so long as they do not have to face competition? Once the trader principle is established as the foundation of economic freedom, size of an outlet is irrelevant.

The only “big” that we have to fear is Big Government – at all levels.

It is ironic that some businesses supporting Measure O themselves started out small, e.g., Stater Bros. One of its founders, Cleo Stater, a 24-year old high school dropout, was earning 10 cents an hour working in a grocery store in 1936 when the owner offered to sell his business to the brothers for $10,000. Since the brothers did not have the money, he agreed to accept $600 down and $300 per month – however, even with their cars as collaterals, the brothers were able to raise only $300. Cleo approached D.M. Holsinger, a rival grocery store owner(!) for a loan. We must have lived in a different America then – Holsinger did not scurry up signatures from concerned citizens to keep a rival out of town nor did he seek to limit the floor space or the percentage of groceries that the brothers would be able to sell. Reportedly, Holsinger said that if the owner was crazy enough to sell Cleo the store, he would be crazy enough to loan him the money. At any point of their expansion into a successful business today, their growth could have been stymied by a “Measure O.”

The opposite of the trader principle is force – physical force such as being robbed at gunpoint or force through government agencies. In a free country, government has the sole monopoly on the use of force and exists to protect individual rights. Since the statists realize that physical force is not condoned in a country that respects the rule of law, they attempt to exert force through legislations – Measure O being one small instance but nevertheless, another hoofbeat in their stampede toward more government control.

We have witnessed the pernicious growth of government at all levels; whatever the level, the argument boils down to more economic (or social) controls by the government or more economic (or social) freedom for the individuals.

For Redlands, Measure O is going to be a barometer of economic freedom – if it passes, we have chosen to shackle ourselves, if it fails, then we have opted for economic freedom.